My shop is as slow as we have ever been.

by Morning Machinist

Author

Jon House
February 06, 2025

It’s a volatile market right now. How busy is your shop?

Top responses include:

  • “Slowest that we've ever been here west of Detroit. It's not just us either. Heat treat, grinder and plater are all also slow. Even our regular scrap guy said that he's had a slow few months also. This usually happens every election year but normally it picks back up after the election. It still hasn't picked back up this time.”

  • “Central Florida, busy. Extremely. 24 years straight overtime. We mostly have CNC mills n lathe. 15 employees.”

  • “Most of the shops in my area are slow too. Very dependent on automotive tooling in this area (dies, molds, fixtures). My guys on the floor have barely seen over time in the last year and half or so”

  • “I have 3 full time and 3 part time and we are in the same boat. Had a large customer base and not much happening with most. It’s been tough for the last 5 months. Worse than the 2008 crash. Running adds adding products but cost keep rising with work slowing is a rough combination. I think it depends on your customer base. Things have shifted over the last 4 years and some shops are booming but many are going bust. Hang in there just as things never go up forever they don’t go down forever if you keep your overhead low, make quick delivery’s, at competitive prices , spend on marketing expand your capabilities. While you can’t spend your way out of a slow down you can survive by increasing your capabilities and market to new industries”

  • “Just about every shop I've talked to around kansas has been slow too. My shop is starting to pick up finally”

  • “We do tooling and machines for every industry in the world that needs a tight and round hole and we are slower than the crash in 08-09. I haven’t been around that long but all the old timers don’t understand what’s going on. We were just bought out after being family ruin for a hundred years so we thought that was the slump, but it was all just a bullshit inflated economy, propped up by credit/refinancing and a booming housing industry, that’s it. Every other sector has tanked and our tooling sales show it in stone. You can’t tell me the economy is doing good when the biggest name in honing is slower than they ever have been…”

  • “Lexington, Kentucky reporting. We are super busy, and are bursting at the seams. We've leased additional building space, purchased a lot of new equipment, and growing our business.”

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Project Help

Top recommendations include:

  • “Too much rake on drill. Just wants to grab.”

    • “Negative rake for copper ,brass , and bronze works pretty good.”

    • “I always drill the smaller hole first and use an end Mill as a cobore at lower RPMs”

    • “A sharp drill bit will want to grab brass and try to pull itself right through. You want to grind a flat on the cutting edges, same with bronze. If you have a machine with a sturdy setup feed, or good control of the spindle, you can manage with a regular drill bit. I would sometimes tighten the lock on the spindle a little, to provide some resistance. A counterbore would be the Best way to go, but, as said in the previous comment an end mill is a good second choice, as long as the part is secured, and the cutter is in a collet.”

    • “Look up pictures of "brass off drill bit", you are basically purposely blunting your drill bit so it won't try and screw itself into the workpiece.”

      • “There are more materials than just brass, but that is just the terminology I always heard. I've had to do it on other non ferrous metals as well as some plastics. If the material tries to suck the drill bit in, and screw itself into the work, brassing it off will prevent that.”

    • “Drill small hole to depth. Then stick a endmill in your Jacob’s drill. Chuck tighten the piss out of it and plunge her on down till counterbore depth. A drill press can get the job done, it shouldn’t take you more than 10 mins to drill and counterbore those two holes manually.”

    • “Put a small flat on your drill so it is cutting with a 90deg edge instead of the high rake edge. It'll stop it from digging in and trying to pull itself into the softer material.”

    • “Brass and softer steels spring away from the cutting edge on the diameter, this puts pressure on the outside diameter of the drill so almost like a big screw drawing your tool in . Scott Mohr said to put brass flats or a flat ON the cutting edge perpendicular to it. Welcome to the trade it's really cool hope you succeed, sometimes putting your head in a book will help if you need a guide”

Question of the Day⁉️

Top responses include:

  • “Lollipop or dovetail back chamfer tool debur before tapping maybe?”

    • “...Possibly. it's an 8-32 tap. So that would be a tiny lollipop cut. Plus, they're a bendment so there's some deviation”

  • “Double drill should fix the burr issue, first drill 0.005"/0.010" smaller ( if the burr is from the drilling)”

  • “Cogsdill back chamfer tool all day. It is what they do.”

  • “Noga reversible deburring hand tools are awesome for this sort of this”

  • “Harvey makes small lollipops and 45's.”

  • “Taking a skim cut on the vertical wall and filet might help once the holes are tapped. That is, if it is done in the same op with 3+2 or 5 axis.”

  • “Look up heule tools. They have tooling that can go through the threaded hole and chamfer the back side. We use them at work to deburr whole pallets of parts before unload.”

  • “We always countersink before tapping. If you don’t, that will actually throw your location off unless it is held under power.”

Funny Post of the Day 🤣🤣🤣

Machinists with questions or advice 🤔

⁉️ What exactly constitutes a crash?

⁉️Is this to heavy for this small table?

⁉️ Is anyone else old enough to have programmed Bandit controls?

⁉️ Anyone have experience with Yama Seiki milling machines?